Edge
by Serenetwinkle
Summary: Sequel to Wait
1. Prologue

Edge - Prologue

Inevitability. Hitsuzen. Whatever.

I've never been one to look very deeply into the future, anyway. So Watanuki's concept of 'no such thing as a coincidence' really wasn't something I ever considered too deeply either way. Things happened. We move on. Simple. If everything happened to be connected in one big array of interwoven destinies, then who was I to argue?

It had seemed a little silly, sure, that no matter what you did, you were going to end up in the same place anyway. Shouldn't we have a little bit of choice in the matter after all?

Lately I'd had a bit of a new perspective on the whole 'inevitable' situation, though. A bit of insight, so to speak. And I understood then, I think, what exactly hitsuzen might really have been about. In as much as a person _could_ understand a concept like that, anyway.

I still believed in coincidences. I mean, some things just _were_ right?

Yet another opinion that soon altered itself.

For instance: our new school year. With the new school year comes a new homeroom. Subsequently, with this new homeroom came new classmates. Seating arrangements are randomly selected and whomever you end up sitting next to is always just the luck of the draw really.

But somehow, I couldn't quite bring myself to believe it was just "luck" when the seat directly across the aisle from me was at that very moment occupied by none other than the boy at the very top of my shit list. Actually, he was the _only_ person on that particular list. So I guess, technically, it was made just for him.

Kazahari Hisao.

Lucky guy.

Bastard extraordinaire.

Oh, I'm sure his mother loved him well enough. And it wasn't like he was some kind of dysfunctional juvenile delinquent. Truth be told, he was a pretty normal guy. Average. Kind of nice.

Did that keep me from wanting to punch his face in?

Not particularly.

As the boy next to me settled his books and whatnot onto his desk, with the faint echoes of '_Hitsuzen_' whispering past my ears in a voice that sounded eerily like Yuuko's, something stirred inside me. An... idea. A plan almost. But not really. Not yet.

Watanuki would never have accused this boy beside me of doing anything wrong. Would probably have been more than a little pissed at _me_ for carrying a grudge of my own. The overly forgiving moron.

But I knew better.

I knew you didn't give over fellow classmates to monsters like the one that had attacked Watanuki. I knew you didn't hand over another human life and then come back to school like nothing had ever happened and pretend it was all just a bad dream.

I was going to make sure Kazahari knew that too.

Make sure he never forgot it either.

"Good morning, Doumeki-kun. I guess we'll be neighbors for now."

He even had the nerve to smile at me.

"Yeah." And I had to grit my teeth to even get that much out. I'm pretty sure the look I was giving him wasn't the friendliest, but hey. He was lucky I wasn't reaching across the two feet that separated our desks and choking him to death. A cold look was the least of his worries right now.

"Ah, well." Now he looked uncomfortable with me staring at him. The teacher had stepped out for a minute and Kazahari glanced anxiously to the door, probably hoping she would get back soon so he could escape scrutiny.

I was making him nervous.

Interesting, that.

Another minute of silence passed while all around us students chatted with each other. He and I were seated in the back of the room, near the far left and away from the only exit aside from the windows. Usually I like sitting near the front, but this seating arrangement might actually come in handy.

"So..." The nervousness was increasing, but he still felt the need to converse with me. One of those types I guess. I can honestly say I've never felt the urge to fill a silence.

"You're, um, friends with Watanuki-kun, right?"

Was this kid stupid or something?

"That's right." I managed to keep my voice level enough, but something must have leaked through anyway, since he then started darting glances at the doorway every other second.

"He's looking a lot better." It could have been my imagination, but I thought I heard something that may have equated to genuine concern, had I felt charitable enough to give him credit for it.

I didn't.

"Yeah."

"Th-that's good," he stuttered, and I could almost see the words in his head forming. Something along the lines of, "_Where the **hell** is the teacher?"_

"Mm-hmm." I wondered if this kid had any idea just how lucky he was that Watanuki _had_ got better.

And then he slipped up.

"I was worried, you know. When he missed so much school last month." Concern was prominent in his words.

Genuine.

Annoying.

And anyone else listening might have missed it, the tiny hint of guilt well masked beneath all that concern, but I knew it was there. Because it _should_ have been there, and I had been listening for it.

But what he said wasn't quite right.

He wasn't friends with Watanuki, barely knew him in fact. What reason did Kazahari have to worry over him? I jumped on his mistake, fully intending to exploit it and force an admission from him.

"I didn't realize you two were friends." I managed to drop some of the chill from my voice, an effort I almost wished I didn't have to bother with, and tried instead for a more approachable curiosity.

Kazahari blinked in surprise, caught in his words. "Oh, well, not so much really. We were in the same homeroom last year is all."

"But you were worried about him?" Still casual, but the edge of anger was threatening to creep out again.

"Well, he was my classmate…" There was definitely guilt now. In both his words and the tight pull of his mouth.

Feeling bad Kazahari? I hope so.

"Yeah, classmates should look out for one another." I tried to look him in the eye as I said that, but for some reason he wouldn't quite meet my gaze and a very weak, "Ah" was the only agreement I got.

I probably would have kept going, poking at him until he finally snapped or confessed or maybe until I made him cry (Watanuki's right, I can be a real bastard sometimes), but our teacher chose that moment to return. It was okay, though. I could be patient.

I knew how to wait.

* * *

Thus ends the prologue. Yes, this one is going to be chaptered too... ;;

Thanks for reading!


	2. Chapter 1

Edge Chapter 1

Whether it was deliberate or on a more subconscious level, I hadn't yet figured out. But for some reason, Watanuki had taken to walking past the temple gates at just the right time to catch me as I left.

The fact that I usually waited until the last minute before I went to school just to make sure he would be able to catch me _was_ deliberate, however. Not that I would ever tell him that, though he probably knew anyway. He never was as completely oblivious as he would have liked to think, or even act. I think that's what people call denial.

But we still arrived at school together, so people could call it whatever they wanted. It didn't really matter to me in the end, so long as the results were the same.

I suppose it might have sounded stalker-ish to say I hadn't left Watanuki alone since what happened nearly a month ago. That I followed him home at night, waited for him after work, and made sure he called me if he ever needed to go out at night. (That last one had been a little difficult to come by, though we worked out a compromise of sorts involving less 'absolutely ridiculous and inane food orders, not that I listen to them anyway' and more 'pull your own damn weight and carry the stuff more often') But if Watanuki truly minded more than he let on, he hid it well.

I was just pretending to finish up sweeping a walkway as Watanuki passed by the temple's entrance. He silently handed me the neatly wrapped bento as I joined him, a quiet 'good morning' by way of greeting.

We walked side by side without speaking, neither one of us inclined to break our newly discover peace with each other, at least for the moment. I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye several times, noticing his color had returned nicely and he was basically back to his old healthy, though absurdly skinny, self. Briefly, I considered telling him about my encounter with Kazahari the day before, but quickly vetoed the idea. He didn't need any more reminders of that night.

I would deal with this by myself.

And yes, a part of me knew that I probably wasn't saying anything because I also didn't want him to tell me to back off. Selfish maybe, but true.

The school gates came into view and a familiar figure stood leaning against one of the stone pillars, awaiting our arrival.

"Ah!" Watanuki's face lit up at the sight of those two brown pony-tails. But where normally he would have run off to her, with shouts of glee following in his wake, Watanuki merely picked up his pace a bit and waved an arm happily.

Still hesitating, almost a month later. But progress was progress, and I was grateful for even that.

"Good morning, Himawari-chan!"

"Good morning, Watanuki-kun, Doumeki-kun."

I nodded in acknowledgment as she fell in step beside us. It was something of a ritual that we would all walk up the steps to the building together before separating to our classes. Kunogi knew, I think, that Watanuki needed friends around him as much as possible and was trying to comfort him in her own unobtrusive way. Simply being there, without prying or asking unnecessary questions as others might have. I respected her a little more for that.

We parted ways as usual, with a promise to meet near the stairs leading to the roof for lunch.

* * *

It may have been my imagination, but Kazahari seemed to be avoiding me.

Perhaps it was the way he lurked on the opposite side of the room, trying his hardest not keep glancing over at me, and failing miserably I might add, or maybe it was the way he waited until after the last bell that signaled the start of class rang before he finally took his seat beside me.

My imagination. Of course.

Overactive little thing, wasn't it?

"Good morning." I smiled, sort of (maybe), but it was a completely wasted effort anyway, since the boy wouldn't even look at me.

"Ah, g-good morning, Doumeki-kun." Darting brown eyes switched momentarily from the front of the class to land on me for somewhere around one-tenth of a second. A corner of his mouth turned up into what I assumed was supposed to be his version of a smile (and Watanuki thought mine were bad), and then his attention was focused again on the front where the teacher was beginning to write on the board.

Up close, and simply put… he looked like crap. Light-ish brown hair was somewhat messy, in that 'I overslept and couldn't find my brush quick enough' state. His eyes were puffy and a little red, but not like he had been crying or anything. More like… he hadn't slept well.

The wave of vindictive satisfaction I felt ripple through me would have normally scared me, or at least made me very uncomfortable, but in this case I was willing to make an exception.

Petty? Yeah, a little.

Or maybe even a lot.

"Long night?" It sounded innocent enough, even to my own ears, but the teen beside me flinched a little at the question, hunching over his paper as he scribbled a few words into his notebook.

"…Yeah," he whispered, too low for anyone but me to have heard. It occurred to me then, that Kazahari was also honest in his own way. He could have easily lied, or told me to shut up and go away (obviously something about me upset him despite my attempts at being pleasant).

He kind of reminded me of Watanuki in that sense. The idiot never could be anything but straightforward and genuine. His candid nature was actually one of the things I like best about him. That and the endless entertainment value.

Try as I might, I couldn't hold back the small amount of anger that attempted to rise up in me at the thought of comparing the boy next to me with Watanuki. It took an effort not to show my irritation outward, but the more I thought about the similarities between the two, the more pissed-off I became. It felt wrong, that this bastard next to me should be anything like Watanuki. That Kazahari would share traits I loved in that boy and try to make them his own.

For the rest of our classes until lunch, I kept my focus on the lectures. But I could feel something bubbling just beneath the surface of my skin and just outside my consciousness. Something that had a name I had never associated with before and wasn't truly prepared to deal with. So I left it alone and ignored it the best I could.

But when our lunch break finally came and Kazahari all but bolted for the exit, I thought maybe I hadn't been able to hide it as well as I would have hoped.

* * *

It's his smile.

The thought occurred to me almost out of nowhere as I watched Watanuki shift about on the stair beneath me, motioning through a recount of something that been discussed in one of his classes to an attentive Kunogi.

Yes, it was definitely that smile. The one that was rarely ever directed at me, but that I had had several opportunities to see nonetheless. More often than not it was Kunogi he directed his smiles to, but those weren't really the ones I was thinking of. Every so often, I was privilege to seeing one of his true smiles. The ones that would cause people to catch their breath and stare after him as he left. The ones that revealed his gentle nature and kind heart. The ones that were hard to come across, because he usually covered them with silly grins or (in my case) exaggerated frowns.

The ones that never seemed to want to show themselves any more.

It was his smile. Because I wanted to see it again. Because I wanted someone to pay for me not seeing it now.

Because for the sake of that smile, I would do far more than most people would have thought me capable of.

* * *

When I arrived back at the classroom, Kazahari was up near the front of the room speaking quietly to the teacher, a hopeful look on his face.

As I passed by, I overheard something that sounded like an apology from the teacher, it being unfair to make another student move, and something about bringing his glasses to school tomorrow. I also noticed that even though he had yet to turn around and see me, the boy's back still stiffened as I walked to my desk, almost like he knew I was listening.

There were a couple minutes before class was supposed to start, but Kazahari still lingered up at the front until the teacher gave him a strange look and asked if there was something else he needed. He answered something I couldn't hear from my seat and made sloth-like progress to his desk.

Things would be easier than I thought if I didn't even have to do anything to make the kid twitchy.

"Something wrong with your eyes?"

He actually jumped.

"Ah, no. They were, uh, just… bothering me today." He avoided looking at me under the pretence of sorting though his school bag to get materials ready for the next class. Or maybe he really was getting ready and I was just feeling a little spiteful.

"Ah. Maybe you should see the nurse." There, I could pull off feigned concern.

For some reason, Kazahari's hands were starting to shake a little and as he pulled a pencil from the pocket of his bag, it clattered to the floor and rolled until it bumped against my foot.

I stooped down to pick it up and politely handed it back to him. He hesitated for a second before accepting it, and I wondered if my sudden nasty urge to throw it at his head had shown on my face. But he accepted it with an equally polite 'thank you.'

What happened next was... strange and ...unpleasant, to say the least, and it took me several minutes afterwards to fully grasp what it might have been.

As Kazahari took the pencil, the tip of one of his fingers bumped briefly to one of my own (probably because he was still shaking). A surge of disgust and loathing welled up unbidden in me. I honestly had no idea where it came from and the force of it surprised me. Immediately, I retracted my hand and turned around in my desk, slightly shaken at the emotions that had surfaced. I knew I didn't like the boy, but the sheer intensity of what I had felt was disconcerting and made me feel vaguely sick.

From my peripheral vision I could see Kazahari staring blankly at the pencil in his hand, a look of shock clearly displayed on his features. He didn't snap out of it until the teacher called attention and class began.

I only had half of my mind truly focused on our teacher as the rest of my brain attempted to process the new sensory information it had received. As my hand dutifully copied down notes, my thoughts simultaneously raced around trying to put together pieces of a puzzle that had only just exposed itself.

I'd been hanging around it long enough by then that I could recognize the feeling I got from that touch for what it was.

Something supernatural.

I snuck a quick glance at the boy beside me. He was having a worse time than I was, apparently. My initial nausea had passed and the alarming wave of emotions I had felt were all but gone, only playing around in the back of my head like static.

Kazahari, on the other hand, still looked incredibly ill. An interesting shade of not-quite-grey, covered with a shiny layer of sweat.

It looked good on him, though a doctor might disagree.

One of those puzzle pieces fell into place as I realized the reason for his sudden bout of unwellness was most likely the same as my own. He had felt something too, something disturbing.

I've been painfully aware of my lack of 'special' abilities lately, and aside from my talent at exercising spirits, there was nothing in my blood that could have produced this sort of effect in either myself or Kazahari.

Meaning the one with the nausea inducing abilities was Kazahari himself. And in sorting through our interactions these last two days and what I knew about the guy in general, I had a growing suspicion of what exactly his "special" abilities might be. If I was right, it would explain a lot. On several levels.

And it would make things all the easier (not to mention incredibly interesting) for me.

* * *

AN- I didn't wait for my beta to get back to me (cause I'm super impatient like that), so forgive me for errors and suckiness. Scurries off to do psych homework.

Thanks for reading!


	3. Chapter 2

(Consider yourself disclaimed.)

Chapter 2

"What's wrong?"

His voice was quiet, but the night was still and allowed the hushed noise to carry the short distance between us without difficulty. I glanced to my left and saw Watanuki watching me with an expectant look.

Had I looked troubled? I wondered what kind of face I had been making to garner that soft hint of concern in his question.

"Nothing, just tired." I tried for the obvious bluff.

He regarded me for another few second before looking away. Inwardly, I let out a small sigh of relief, thinking he had taken the bait.

"That's not it. There's something else. You've been acting... different. I thought so yesterday too."

Since when did he become so observant anyway? The annoyance of being seen through might have been greater if I wasn't simultaneously pleased that he had been watching me close enough to notice. I looked at the boy beside me again and he looked back.

He must have been thinking around the same lines as me because he suddenly started sputtering and flapping his free hand around in front of him, the one holding his schoolbag just kind of shook back and forth a bit.

"Not that I was watching you or anything! I mean, you just... even for you, not talking at all... it was strange! You weren't complaining and that scared me. And, and you didn't finish lunch today. _That_ was just plain frightening! I thought the world was ending or something."

"Ah, well sorry to bring about the apocalypse with my eating habits."

Watanuki gave a short 'hmph' and tilted his chin up. "Yes, well I've always wondered if the world would stop spinning if you skipped a meal."

"I have fasted before, you know." The training involved with being a temple brat has obviously not factored in to this particular conversation.

"Probably cheated," he muttered. But I was too happy for the distraction away from the original topic to be properly offended by it. Besides, I always took anything Watanuki said in an argument with a grain of salt. A very large, tolerant grain of salt that doesn't pay attention half the time.

"That doesn't count though, since it was required," he insisted. "I'll bet you've never willingly said no to food. It just doesn't suit your personality."

Well, that was true enough. Though right then I could have mentioned that there was a point where I had very willingly skipped several meals at a time, not very long ago. But that was something I had no intention of bringing up, not even to win an argument.

"You're probably right," I conceded.

"Of course."

And that should have been that. We were nearly to Watanuki's apartment by then and normally we would have simply walked the rest of the way in silence until we reached his door, where he would leave me with a "see you tomorrow." I'd broken him of the "thank you" after the first week.

So when he came round to the subject again, it took me a second to catch up.

"That's why it was strange, though." His voice had gone back to being that quiet and concerned mix that was starting to make me uneasy. He was being persistent. Of all the times to show interest in my wellbeing...

"I had an upset stomach, that's all. I'll eat everything tomorrow if it makes you feel better." I wasn't looking at him when I said it, so I couldn't see if he bought it, but I didn't want to look him in the eyes right then.

There was a space of time when he was quiet enough that I thought he really had dropped it.

I should really stop making assumptions about Watanuki.

"I thought you said it was because you were tired." An accusation like that would normally have sounded suspicious, but I couldn't really pick up on any infliction to his voice at all. Now I had to look at him, if only to try and see what he was thinking.

But his face wasn't giving away anything either.

One of us had stopped walking, but I wasn't sure who. For some reason it seemed important to me that I should have known who had stopped walking first, but then again, maybe I was just trying to distract myself from spilling my worries into those wide blue eyes that were watching me so closely.

I never could lie to him, looking into those eyes. So I said nothing.

He sighed suddenly and closed his eyes. "Doumeki..."

But I took the break in eye contact to turn and begin walking again, taking the cowardly way out.

"It's getting late. Let's go."

I waited to hear the sound of his footsteps behind me, but they didn't come. My pace slowed until it rivaled that of a snail, hoping he would be the one to break first. He knew me well enough by now, though, to know I wouldn't really leave him alone on an empty street in the middle of the night. That gave me mixed feelings again, but this time foreboding was the prominent one.

I stopped. I'd barely turned to face him before he confronted me.

"Is it because he's in your class?"

It was clear who "he" was, though how Watanuki had found out so quickly was what threw me the most. But by this point denying the problem would have been redundant and insulting. I would have given Watanuki a lot of credit for managing to put things together in such a short amount of time, but that would have been insulting too. He was my friend after all, no matter how vehemently he denied it (less as of late), and friends noticed things like this.

"How..." I meant to ask him how he found out, but that might have made me look even guiltier.

Apparently my question was pretty transparent anyway. "I saw him walking out after school yesterday, when I came to meet you." The gap between us closed, as he finally caught up to me. "And I worried that... You'll leave him alone, right?"

I looked into eyes dyed midnight blue by darkness and streetlamps and still couldn't lie. Again, I said nothing.

My silence was taken for what is was. Watanuki lowered his head to stare at his feet. "I've let it go. Can't you do the same?"

For some reason, that statement stirred a ripple of anger in me. It made me more honest than I wanted to be. "No. I can't"

His head snapped up at my words and Watanuki fixed me with a fiery glare. "It's not your problem to be indecisive over, Doumeki. Let it go."

The ripple turned into a current. I grabbed his wrist, the one with the pretty blue bracelet that matched his eyes, and dug my fingers in hard enough to where I knew he could feel every one of those tiny beads pressed against his skin. "Whose problem was it again?"

And of course he remembered. Because that's what it was there for, to make sure he never forgot. I once asked Watanuki if it was really worth it too keep the bracelet and he told me (with a smile sad enough to make me want to kill the demon one more time, just for old times sake) that even though he would remember that night every time he looked at it, the memories would fade eventually, into something fuzzy and distant, but the dreams were always so accurate, just like reliving the same thing over and over, right down to the tiniest detail. He had shivered then, and I didn't bring it up again after that, wanting the memories to become fuzzy as soon as possible.

Why was I deliberately making him remember things now, then? I couldn't even answer it myself. So when the hurt filled his eyes and he tugged his hand away, I let him. Shame washed over me, stronger than I had ever felt before. Only minutes before, hadn't I told myself I wouldn't use such tactics even to win an argument?

Liar. Hypocrite.

I wondered if apologizing would be nearly enough.

There was no chance to do so, however, because as soon as I let go of him, Watanuki was marching around me and setting a pace that was a double of our original.

I was left to trail behind him, feeling like the complete bastard we both knew I was.

When we finally reached his apartment, I still didn't get my chance to apologize, because as soon as I reached him he opened the door and whirled on me.

"What's done is done. Stop thinking about it." My head was still full of blue fire when the door slammed shut in my face. 

* * *

He said (no, _demanded_) that, but the fact of the matter was, I just couldn't keep my self from thinking about it. I tried to distract myself. Homework, chores, meditation: all failed to keep the demons from haunting my consciousness. If only it were as easy as exorcising a real demon though; at least then I would know what I had to do.

But after fighting it to the best of my abilities, I finally gave in to the urge to brood and settled myself down for a night of indecisive angsting.

Watanuki was right to be mad at me. I had used a low trick to remind him of my part in this whole thing, and even more so because he was partly right to begin with. If he had forgiven Kazahari, what right did I really have to hold a grudge for him?

But I couldn't ignore the part of me that said I _did_ have that right. That if Watanuki wouldn't get mad at him for what he did, then I sure as hell should. And I wanted that part to win the argument in me. Because I also couldn't ignore my own personal feelings.

This person had hurt Watanuki. I don't forgive that. Period.

Watanuki could call me stubborn or pig headed or idiotic until he was blue in the face. But the truth was the truth. If I was going to let this go, it was going to be after I felt Kazahari had realized just what a big mistake he had made. Realized, and begged for forgiveness from the person he had left to die.

And maybe, maybe, then I could stop thinking about it.

* * *

Under a sneaking suspicion, I woke up early the next morning and lingered by the entranceway, ready to go. Sure enough, more than an hour earlier that he was normally up, Watanuki walked past the gate barley pausing when he saw me. The only emotion I could read from his face was resignation, but I was glad for that since at least it meant he wasn't really angry anymore.

No, not angry, but as the silence stretched out between us on our walk to school, I could tell it was strained. Through several surreptitious inspections (though I probably could have been outright staring and not gotten a response, that's how hard Watanuki was trying to ignore me), I could see the tight pursing of his lips and a single stress line creasing his forehead. Also, the coloring under his eyes, that semi-permanent shadow that had never fully gone away, was slightly darker than I had seen in a while.

Obviously, he was still agitated about what we had spoken about the night before. I didn't like the fact that Watanuki had been upset enough by what had happened that it affected his sleep. It was counterproductive, and it didn't sit well that I was the one causing the regression.

"Watanuki." The name was on my lips before I had even thought another second past that last revelation.

For a few seconds, it looked as though he would keep on ignoring me, but eventually he tilted his cheek in my direction and let his gaze settle on me for a moment or two before returning his attention to the path in front of him. His signal for: "I'm Listening". An old habit that he had developed back when he was still in the hospital and hadn't felt like speaking, but still wanted me to know he was paying attention.

The gesture had been lost for several weeks now, and I felt a quick pang to see him use it again.

"I'm sorry. I was wrong." Again, the words slipped by without any conscious effort on my part, but they were the words I knew he needed to hear, and even if I had thought about it first I probably would have said the same thing anyway.

Watanuki slowed to a stop, but continued to stare at the sidewalk. It was a testament to how serious he was about this that he didn't immediately claim a victory and crow to the world how he had been right. I had to be careful of what I said from here on, if things were to get better.

Finally, he lifted his face and regarded me with a solemn contemplation. We stood like this for a while: him, scrutinizing my sincerity and me, awaiting judgment. It wasn't like we would be late for school, so I let him take his time. Though I suspected even if we had been late, I would have given him as long as he wanted.

As far as I knew, Watanuki topped pretty much everything on my priority list.

It seemed as though a long time passed before he spoke, but then, time was funny like that. At first, he only opened his mouth a couple times, whatever he wanted to say abandoning him at the last second and leaving him only with a sigh of annoyance. I waited patiently, because I knew Watanuki was rarely without words and he would find them eventually. And sure enough, after the first abortive attempts, he managed a reply.

"You... weren't wrong."

And _that_ was definitely not the reply I had been expecting to hear. It floored me for a minute, and had I been as expressive a person as Watanuki, I probably would have been left with a hanging jaw and several shades of 'what the hell?' colored across my face.

As it was, I think I might have blinked a bit more than normal, but I still protest Watanuki's claims that I am completely expressionless (though this probably wasn't helping my case). Despite my lack of theatrics, Watanuki seemed to understand he had thrown me off balance and tried to rectify any misunderstandings with his own special variety of statement retraction.

"I'm not saying you were right! Don't go getting all egotistical. I'm only saying that, you weren't _completely_ wrong. And..." The bluster wore down back into staid composure. "And I can kind of understand how you feel. That's all."

It may have seemed like a victory on the surface, but I could feel the uncertainly and hesitation in his words. It had cost him a lot to say what he did, and not just because his pride was taking a hit. Watanuki wanted nothing more than to forget everything and everyone associated with that night. That he thought about it long enough to see things from my own perspective gave me an even greater appreciation for Watanuki's strength and sense of fairness.

He was waiting for my answer. It was written in his body even if he didn't turn to look at me or say anything more. From the stiffness of his shoulders and the clenched, white-knuckled hands, I could tell he was foreseeing a fight, or something close to it, and was steeling himself to argue his point and drive home that stubborn logic of his.

But for once, I was willing to forgo the give and take we usually threw around and let him have the final word on the matter.

"Alright."

When I said nothing more, Watanuki finally looked at me, a half skeptical, half hopeful look on his face.

"And that means..." he prompted.

"I'll also try to see things your way."

His eyes regarded me warily, sensing a loophole no doubt. "So then, you'll leave him alone?"

I wasn't so optimist to think he would allow me to leave it at that statement, so I was prepared for this. I caught and held his eyes, and carefully recited the words I had decided on last night.

"I won't speak to him unless I have to, and I won't ever mention you or anything about that to him. My contact with him will be as little as possible."

I could see the words filtering through that suspicious head of his, each sentence being broken and analyzed for trustworthiness.

"You... promise?" It was a childishly naive way to end a conversation, but I hadn't exactly envisioned him pulling up paperwork, so I didn't mind. Besides, I would never back out on my word to Watanuki, and he seemed to know that.

"I promise."

It was almost magical the way his mood lightened almost the instant the words left my mouth. It was the key phrase that closed the subject, and Watanuki was now moving on to new matters, such as those regarding my expected (overwhelming) gratefulness to him for making lunch (even though I totally didn't deserve it) and anticipation of Kunogi's reaction to the new dessert he had tried (I had better leave plenty for her), plus other odds and ends of anything that popped into that cluttered brain of his.

It was different from our usual walk to school, but I recognized the need to erase the feelings brought up last night. I played along, interjecting my own brand of medicine when the occasion called for it. And it was good to see that sometimes, with a properly place comment or two, I could still get a genuine feeling of homicidal intent from him.

* * *

I made that promise with every intention of keeping it. I don't give my word out, just to make it worth shit at the first opportunity that benefits me.

Which was why I made sure to word my sentences very carefully.

And, under normal circumstances, what I said would be more than binding for any person up to no good. But, I was certain these weren't normal circumstances.

I entered the classroom with a schooled face, testing it out on several other students to make sure there was nothing there that would be considered unfriendly (though I've been told I just have a naturally scary face anyway). I nodded a few times at the greetings of my classmate and concluded I was no scarier than usual.

I kept my features the same and waited. As predicted, my test subject came in only seconds before the final bell rang. He kept his head down as he made his way across the room and down our aisle.

He almost managed to make it to his seat too.

When he stopped, it was a dead stop, as if he had come in contact with some invisible force field preventing him from making it the final step to the seat of his desk. Though it didn't look as though he was looking forward to sitting there anyway.

He was staring straight ahead, mouth hanging slightly open as he struggled to breathe. He was shaking a bit and I could see the hand not holding onto his schoolbag opening and closing in a twitchy kind of way.

I made sure my face remained impassive and kept my eyes straight forward, not noticing the boy beside me in the least. Pretending I had no idea there was a problem.

All the while filling my entire mind and body with an unequivocal contempt and rage, laced thoroughly with malice, and directing all those thoughts and feelings to the person next to me.

I never once looked at him, even as he dropped his satchel to clamp his hands over his mouth and run from the room.

And unless Kazahari was suddenly suffering from an acute case of food poisoning, I could say that the experiment was a success.

I wouldn't have to break my promise.

Because empaths don't need words or actions to know when someone hates them. 

* * *

AN- For those who don't know:  
Empath- a person that has a paranormal or psychic ability to sense the emotions of others

Big thank you to my beta toriolees!

Thanks for reading. 


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